


fixed variable

by cherriedpeaches



Series: Arumika Week 2019 [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arumika Week, Childhood Friends, F/M, Feelings, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 08:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20738999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherriedpeaches/pseuds/cherriedpeaches
Summary: “His name's Patches,” Armin explained, flicking one of the long, droopy ears. “I hug him when there are ghosts around.”“Grisha says ghosts aren't real,” Mikasa said, hugging Patches to her abdomen. She looked at least a little comforted anyway....Arumika Week, Day 1: "Stay With Me,"





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Armin had loved Mikasa for as long as he could remember.

(Technically, this wasn't true. Armin actually could remember a time before Mikasa had moved in with the Jaegers, though it was almost bizarre to think about. It had felt perfectly normal at the time, being seven years old and having only Eren for a friend, but thinking back on it, everything felt off-kilter, out of balance, like a tripod missing a leg.

How, he wondered, had they ever survived without Mikasa?)

He'd loved her the way he loved the soft yellow stuffed rabbit that he hugged when he heard noises in the night, the way he loved reading and drawing and sunny days, the way he loved his grandfather and Eren and the way he had loved his parents.

(Had? Do you stop loving people once they're dead?

...No.)

So, when Mikasa, pale and so soft-spoken Armin almost didn't hear her, said,  _ Stay, _ he did without question.

Eren had broken his collarbone climbing a tree earlier that day, like the dumbass he was, (though Armin, aged nine, would never have said that out loud. Later in life, though, definitely) Carla and Grisha had to stay overnight at the hospital, and Mikasa wasn't allowed to wait with them.

So, Mikasa ended up having an emergency sleepover at Armin's house.

He knew that she was not happy, to say the least, about this arrangement, and he felt the same. His stomach kept going all twisty and uncomfortable when he thought about it, and he wanted to see for himself that Eren was okay.

(He'd heard that if you broke a bone in the exact wrong way, you could sever the nerves and end up losing the limb because you couldn’t move it. He wasn't sure if this was even true, but still, what if they had to chop Eren's arm off?)

They were supposed to be sharing Armin's bunk bed, Mikasa at the top bunk and Armin on the bottom, but before bedtime, they made a little fort on the ground of Armin's bedroom.

Two chairs facing away from each other, a duvet slung across the top of them to make a roof, another duvet on the floor between them to lie down on, some cushions to make it comfy, and boom, you have a blanket fort fit for two nine-year-olds.

Around 9.25, Armin's grandfather had quietly opened the door and told them that they had to go to bed, the Jaegers would be picking Mikasa up very early in the morning.

So, when the Winnie the Pooh clock on Armin's wall hit half nine, he began getting up, either to start taking down the fort or just fall into bed.

(It had been a very harrowing day.)

But a tug on his sleeve halted him.

Armin glanced back at Mikasa who gazed at him with almost unreadable eyes. She gently tugged on his sleeve again, chewing on the inside of her mouth.

“Stay,” she said softly.

It had been difficult for her that day, probably even more difficult than it had been for Armin. Eren had fallen while Armin was in the shed looking for a ladder, but Mikasa had been there for the whole ordeal.

He'd heard the thump, crunch, and  _ yells _ and come running, and those sounds were still echoing in his head hours later. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Mikasa, who had seen and heard the entire thing up close.

No one would like to be alone in their own head after experiencing something like that.

And the fact that neither of them could visit Eren to see for themselves that he was okay, was just making everything a hundred times worse.

Mikasa's grip was loose, he could have easily broken out of it if he wanted. Though he knew that she was strong enough to break his wrist if  _ she  _ wanted to.

(She didn't. Of course she didn't.)

The thought of snatching his wrist away didn't cross his mind.

He did, however, have an idea.

“One second,” he whispered, slowly drawing his sleeve out of Mikasa's grip. Mikasa looked a little paler, a little more anxious, so Armin dashed over to his bed.

He drew the cover back, and grabbed his yellow rabbit off the bed. Mikasa looked a little confused as he got back, but accepted the teddy anyway, holding it lightly.

“His name's Patches,” Armin explained, flicking one of the long, droopy ears. “I hug him when there are ghosts around.”

“Grisha says ghosts aren't real,” Mikasa said, hugging Patches to her abdomen. She looked at least a little comforted anyway.

“Then why do adults write books about looking for ghosts all the time?” Armin asked, thinking of the spooky book on his bookshelf with a  _ picture  _ of a ghost on the cover, taken with a green night-vision camera. His grandpa said he wasn't supposed to read it til he's older, but thinking of it, he'll probably end up reading it at some point. After tonight. He's already scared enough tonight.

“People can lie in books,” Mikasa pointed out.

Armin stared into the distance, wondering if now was the time for a crisis. “Maybe we should go to sleep and think about this in the morning,” His head hurt.

Mikasa shrugged, and proceeded to lay down on the floor of the fort. Armin leaned over, and unplugged the lamp, the entire room flooded with darkness but for the fuzz of the orange street-lights outside. He lay down next to Mikasa.

“Thank you for Patches,” Mikasa whispered into the dark, grateful and open and vulnerable in a way that she can only be around her two favorite people in the world.

Armin hummed a dozing affirmative, a  _ you're welcome _ and a  _ goodnight _ and an  _ I love you. _

Mikasa closed her eyes, and relaxed.

* * *

Of course Mikasa loved Armin.

It seemed edgy and cliché (though, she really didn't care all that much about seeming like a stereotype) but ever since her parents... ever since her parents, love didn't come easy to her.

Once upon a time, she’d loved the flowers that grew along the edges of the farm and having her hair braided and the big, old, floppy hat that had once belonged to her grandmother.

Mikasa was a different person now. Whether she wanted to go back to that happy child or not, (she didn't want to, though it sounded strange. The thought made her stomach turn) it wasn't an option.

She didn't love a lot of things, because for a long, long time, thinking love automatically sent her thinking of a little girl living in a farmhouse with her parents.

However.

She knew without a doubt that she loved Armin and Eren.

It was pretty clear to  _ everyone _ that she loved Armin and Eren with everything she had.

Slowly, slowly, as the years went by and the blood-covered wooden floor faded from the back of her eyelids to the back of her mind, a foggy memory that she could only see if she actually focused on dredging the details up, connotations changed.

Love didn't have to mean  _ parents _ and  _ farmhouse _ and  _ gone _ . It could mean books and scarves and holding hands with her best friends as they ran through the streets.

Love was sitting with Armin and Eren during the summer, sticking their feet into the river and kicking against the stones and hunting for frogs and being glad that the evenings were cool enough to not be sweating their skin off.

Love was absolutely  _ nailing _ Armin and Eren during snowball fights, and batting at the bobbles on their hats, and curling up in a blanket fort afterwards, warm and comfy and smug as all hell.

Her odd, tangled relationship with love didn't get any easier with the butterfly-feelings she got around Armin, the not-friends kind of feelings, the kissing kind of feelings.

Maybe not  _ not _ friends, just friends and also something else as well.

Mikasa wondered if she should watch one of those rom-com movies, the ones that Eren denied downloading almost as hard as he denied crying at the end of Titanic.

Granted, getting relationship advice from romantic comedies seemed almost as bad as getting relationship advice from Jean, but she wasn't about to ask Carla, or, God forbid, Eren.

It wasn't like she didn't want to tell Eren about these weird, mushy feelings towards Armin, but Eren just seemed like he'd be horrifically awkward about relationship advice, especially concerning his two best friends.

Mikasa was pretty much immune to "horrifically awkward", but she didn't want to have to call an ambulance if Eren turned so red that he passed out.

She could ask Annie. She seemed to have this thing going on with Bertholdt and Reiner, and was probably the least likely to leak Mikasa's...  _ feelings _ to someone else.

However, the thing that was going on between Annie-Bertolt-Reiner was definitely more complicated and messy than Mikasa wanted any of her relationships to be, so following Annie's advice might not lead where Mikasa wanted to go.

Connie, Sasha, Jean were all automatically out of the question. Ymir she couldn't imagine even asking. Christa, (Historia?) while nice, seemed to be going through major family issues, so Mikasa thought it better to leave her out of this.

Who was left? Hanji?  _ Levi? _

Nope. She'd figure this out on her own.

* * *

On one night, near the end of the seemingly endless summer, Mikasa couldn't sleep.

It happened sometimes. She'd lie in bed and stare at the ceiling and wait for sleep to come, but all she felt was itchy and hot and restless.

It was too quiet outside. Mikasa didn't really like the silence; it set her on edge, some primal part of her baring its claws and keeping her eyes open as she waited for something to break it.

As the silence of the night stretched on and on forever, Mikasa slipped out of bed and out the window.

Leaving through the window had always been ridiculously easy for her. She flitted from one windowsill to another and onto the grass, light and catlike. Operating in shadows came second nature to her.

Mikasa padded down the street, passing empty cars and drawn curtains, invisible to everyone but for the occasional cat that she would make eye contact with.

Still, at least she could focus on her own muffled footsteps and not the thin silence of the night.

She ended up, surprisingly or not, on the hills outside their little town, where the purple flowers grew.

There was already someone sitting there.

“Hi,” she said lowly, despite the fact that there was no one to hear them for at least half a mile.

Armin jumped about a foot in the air, letting out a sharp yelp, high-pitched and echoing.

His head shot up from his book to see her, before he slumped onto his back with relief. “Jeez, you scared me,” Armin said, closing his book and setting it to the side. “I thought I was about to get murdered.”

Mikasa's lips twitched, as she pulled her hands out of her jacket pockets. “Do murderers greet their victims before they kill them?”

"I don’t know, I’ve never been murdered before,”

Mikasa huffed, settling onto the grass beside Armin. “Go back to reading. I think I'm just going to take a nap,”

“Is it really a nap if you take it in the middle of the night?” Armin mumbled, probably more to himself than to her. She ignored him, shifting onto her back and using her arms as a pillow.

Maybe love was dozing off to the sound of Armin's quiet breathing and the rustling of pages.

Mikasa woke up a couple of hours later, with Armin passed out beside her. She checked her watch.

Half five in the morning. She'd probably have to head back soon.

She shifted, stretching, and feeling a little gross because she was covered in dirt and sweat from lying in the grass for hours. Her old t-shirt was wrinkled beyond salvation.

Her movements must have roused Armin, as he began grumbling next to her, blinking his eyes open.

They locked gazes for a moment, still lying down.

“I have to go,” Mikasa said quietly, voice still gruff and gravelly from sleep. Still, she hesitated for a moment, not wanting to break the peaceful night air.

She sat up slowly, but paused in standing up by a hand encircling her sleeve, a little clumsy from grogginess. Armin shifted into a sitting position.

“Stay with me,” he murmured, before pointing out into the distance with his free hand. “See? The sun is coming up.”

The sky was beginning to glow a soft red, radiating out from the centre of the horizon. Streaks of gold and pink clouds were lighting up slowly.

“Oh,” was all Mikasa said.

So for one long moment, they watched the sun bleed into the sky.

Mikasa turned her head as subtly as she could, (which was very) watching Armin out of the corner of her eye. He was lit up under the fiery warm tones of the growing sunrise, hair glowing gold and eyes blinking heavily, still a little sleepy.

Mikasa decided, right then and there, that love didn't need to be stupid and complicated.

Maybe it was the fact that her brain was still half-dreaming, the rising sun giving everything a rose-tinted hue, or just that being awake at that hour makes people do funny things, but she leaned forward and planted a kiss on Armin's cheek.

Well, she was aiming for Armin's cheek. It landed square on his temple, and she blamed her poor aim on the fact that she had just woken up a few minutes ago.

Armin paused for a second, turning to look at Mikasa, but she relaxed as a slow smile tugged at his lips. He stretched upwards and pressed a kiss to her cheek, this one actually landing.

Mikasa responded by pecking his lips.

The morning sunlight began to hit the hills, golden and new and ancient and eternal.

Armin and Mikasa loved each other the same way.

**Author's Note:**

> I have been waiting over a month to post this!!
> 
> Seriously, I adore both Mikasa and Armin with all my heart, arumika week motivated me to write more in 3 weeks than i'd written in the past 4 months.
> 
> this is the first snk fic i'll ever actually publish (even though i've been in the fandom for years... don't look at me) nd u guys better prepare, because i have 6 more of these things lined up.
> 
> hmu on tumblr, i'm @brightwritesstuff


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